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User blog:BackToTheFuturama86/Blog Number 2: Probability of Characters in ERB
Day 2, blog 2. This has been done several times in different ways, kinda (Night's blog about fictional characters, Shaun's blog about flow and rhyme, etc.) So I decided I'd make tiers on this for what characters (both fictional and nonfictional) could/should and couldn't/shouldn't be used in ERB. Here goes! Characters in General The person, be they fictional or from real life, must have a specific "look". For instance, in my opinois, people like Gorbachev, J.P. Morgan, or Barack Obama probably wouldn't have been used if they didn't have their "look" (birthmark, giant mustache, and black-ness, respectively). I know this sounds pretty off-topic, but you know how I make Lego minifigs for all of the ERBs? What I'm trying to say here is not use a character where the fig would look like this guy. There are a few slight exceptions to this rule, like James Bond and Rod Serling, but they have very distinguishable faces and voices, and have a lot of material about them. Another thing that effects the likelyhood of a particular person being in an ERB is their impact on pop culture. Had there been no 300 movie, there would have almost definitely been no Leonidas vs Master Chief. The only reason they used Chuck Norris was because of the Chuck Norris jokes, and the only reason they used Sarah Palin was because of everyone making fun of her on the internet. What I'm saying is that they have to have had a major impact on society and culture. There have been some characters who broke this rule in the past (Bill O'Reilly, Mitt Romney, etc.) but they were exceptions (O'Reilly was in the first battle, and they hadn't really set any grounds yet, Romney was important at the time of his battle). They also have to be pretty well known. Sorry to some users here, but very few people know people like Carl Gauss or Finn Dodd, so there's a very high probability that they'll never be used. As with the other two rules, there have been exceptions (for instance Bill O'Reilly, Macho Man, Nikola Tesla), but there's still a very large amount of people who did know who they were, and even if you didn't know them at the time, you do now, so ERB is educational! This is a major factor as to whether or not a character will be used. The fourth and final topic I will talk about before I move on to examples is the material available. A general rule that I like to use is "If they themselves don't have a Wikipedia page, they probably won't be in one". There's been one exception to this in ERB, and that's Napoleon Dynamite, but his movie has a Wikipedia page. However, many obscure people have Wikipedia pages, so that rule doesn't always work. Remember, Peter and Lloyd like to pack a lot of references into their battles, so if there's not much information about a person, there's a high probability that they won't be used. Examples: Fictional Characters Examples so far and reasonings: *Darth Vader- Widely recognized, memorable outfit/costume, from the largest movie series of all time *Napoleon Dynamite- Easily recognized, pretty memorable movie, not satirical but still funny *Albus Dumbledore- Best selling book series ever, extremely well known, very popular movies *Leonidas- Mostly recognized as a meme taken from the movie 300 and not from the real-life king, but still pretty recognizable *Mario and Luigi- Most famous video game characters, very recognizable outfits *HAL 9000- From a pretty popular movie, but it was a dated reference by the time of the battle. Very recognizable to anyone who knew the movie, but pretty obscure. Mostly just to represent AI. *Doc Brown- A very famous movie, pretty popular character, easily recognizable *Doctor Who- Very popular TV show, extremely well known on the internet *Batman- Extremely well-known comic/movie series, practically everyone (if not literally everyone old enough to watch ERB) knew who he was before ERB, as well as... *Sherlock Holmes- Possibly the most famous book character of all time, several movie adaptions, extremely popular. *Ebenezer Scrooge- Very famous book, most popular Christmas story (if I'm not mistaken), very distinguishable look Possibilities to be used in the future: *Ash Ketchum- Pretty famous video game character, has a TV show, video game series, card game, manga, etc. *Walter White- Main character from the most famous new TV show from the last couple of years, bery distinctive "look" *Forrest Gump- The movie's very famous, he's a very famous character, pretty much everyone's heard of him at least once *James Bond- Probably one of the most famous movie characters ever, and he's extremely popular *Indiana Jones- Also very famous, has a very distinguishable look, and his movies are very successful *Harry Potter- Main character of the most popular book/movie series. **This may start a debate on whether or not characters can be used if other characters from their respective fictional universe can be used. I will not go into this debate here, nor do I wish for it to continue in the comments. *Freddy Krueger- Probably the most famous scary-movie character ever, extremely famous, very recognizable *Superman- Most popular superhero ever, really famous costume, he's got a lot of material *The Ghostbusters- A cult classic movie, but most people have heard of them, and there's a lot of material on them *Bill and Ted- Another cult classic, but they're pretty famous and there's a lot of history in the movies **Some characters won't be used, like Austin Powers, because the movie is a satirical comedy, and it's hard to make comedy out of something that's already comedy. Examples: Real People A couple of examples that have alreay been used and reasonings: *John Lennon- Lead singer of the most popular band of all time, extremely recognizable *Adolf Hitler- Everyone knows who he is, extremely well-known, very famous "look" *Justin Bieber- Only used because everyone hates him, lots of material *Billy Mays- Used because of his beard, loud voice, and death, very popular infomercials *William Shakespeare- Most popular author of all time, very distinguishable type of speech *Steve Jobs- Famous look, created one of the biggest corporations of out lifetime, had died recently, and is very historical *Mikhail Gorbachev- Not gonna lie, they probably only used him because of his birthmark *Bob Ross- Certainly not the most famous person used, but certainly not the least. He has an extremely famous look Some (but certainly not all) possible future examples: *Walt Disney- Pretty famous look, created one of the most successful businesses *Edgar Allan Poe- Another famous look, written some pretty famous stories *Julius Caesar- Emperor of one of the greatest empires in all of history *Colonel Sanders- Very famous look, pretty big entrepreneur *Vlad the Impaler- He's also pretty recognizable, and he's the story behind Count Dracula *Che Guevara- Pretty famous, blah blah blah just look him up. Category:Blog posts